Cadillac Fully Admits It Overpriced The ELR

We’re now seeing deals to be found almost everywhere on the Cadillac ELR. Some ELRs have been selling for as low as $40,000. With massive discounts being offered, Cadillac marketing chief Uwe Ellinghaus finally went on record to admit that the ELR’s initial price starting at $74,995 was way off:

“One thing is fair to say: We’ve had a great learning exercise with this car.”

“The MSRP was, indeed, a mouthful. We overestimated that customers would realize our competitors were naked at that price.”

It seems as though Cadillac was trying to price the ELR high for a few reason, which Automotive News details below:

“Cadillac set the initial price so high, in part, to reflect the opulent appointments offered standard, rather than as extra options.

Of course, Cadillac had its reasons for the lofty price on the window sticker. There was the obvious economic rationale of trying to split customers by willingness to pay. If Cadillac priced the car too close to the Volt, environmentally minded drivers willing to spend close to six figures for a vehicle might have simply chosen the cheaper offering.

And then there was the marketing rationale. A price nearing $80,000 seemed like a good way to signal all that the valuable Cadillacness to customers, everything from the badge on the grill to the heated steering wheel and 10-speaker Bose stereo. The ambitious price planted the car firmly in Tesla territory.”

Priced in Tesla territory, potential buyers opted for the Tesla. The new 2016 Cadillac ELR (with improved performance) is priced much lower (starting at $66,000), but is that figure still to high? We think so, but time will tell.

$49,995 is the expected base price, and that’s still a bit high for a sub 40 EV mile plug in hybrid. Then upgrades and discounts on top of that. $66k is still too much to ask for a Volt coupe. Especially when Chevrolet is marketing it’s sibling, the Volt, at a price ‘as low as $26,670’.

if the ELR had over 100 miles of EV range, i think that price would have not been so bad. the additional EV range with range extender (unlike tesla) would have been a premium feature. as it is, given the past experience with the Cimarron i think it was a mistake to put out a Cadillac that people would view as just a “trimmed up” version of another GM car.

This has been one of my problems with GM, their living in the past pov. It’s how do we screw the customer rather than serve them.
This old school thinking needs get the bums rush out the door.

Pricing it higher to compete with the Tesla?
If I was in the market I would think, well for another 20k I could get a Tesla, probably the best car in the world.
Pricing it too low would make people think it was merely a glorified Volt, which it was, is.
I said it before and I will say it again, just scrap the whole program and go back to the drawing board. It’s image, thanks to Neanderthal thinking, is too tarnished to fix.

Volt 2.0 and the ELR are both overpriced. With true, 200 mile full BEVs on the way the marginal, micro improvement to the range and fake 5th seat in the Volt 2 only points out how far behind GM is in it’s thinking.

The ELR’s pricing was stupid, arrogant and absurd. For Caddy to think that their brand, Leather seats and a cooler 2 door body were worth that delta and that they were even begining to lite a small birthday candle next to Tesla’s Dragon Rocket Model S is completely laughable.

And I did really like the ELR and Volt. But the price is silly for what you get. Start showing us the BOLT Electric with 200+ real miles… and beat the rest of the market… and install CCS into the VOLT and BOLT and all SPARKS… and your entire dealer network and now we’re talking!

This whole post doesn’t make sense for so many reasons. Gen2 hit the target of 50miles of AER, which is class leading for PHEVs. (The i3 Rex is not a true PHEV w/its crippled gas engine). $34K is on par with the price of new vehicles, especially cutting edge technology ones. Factor in the tax credit and the price becomes ‘cheap’, for what you are getting. 5 year costs is less than a Cruze. The 5th seat in compact car is what you would expect in a compact car. How many compacts don’t even have any type of 5th seat? And why are you trying to haul 5 people in a compact. You do understand that a Tesla and an ELR are 2 different types of vehicles, right? One is a BEV and one is an EREV. There are many people that will never buy a BEV, no matter how many times you call it a “dragon rocket”. Do you understand that below a certain battery size it makes no sense to put DCFC in a plug-in vehicle? Do you understand that with a range extender, DCFC is not necessary? The only point I agree with you on is selling… Read more »

“Priced in Tesla territory, potential buyers opted for the Tesla” Is there support for this assertion? I mean are there a group of Tesla owners that seriously considered the ELR before deciding on the Model S?

“You do understand that a Tesla and an ELR are 2 different types of vehicles, right? One is a BEV and one is an EREV.”

People would understand it better if you’d use the proper term for the Volt, and that’s PHEV. “EREV” is merely a marketing term invented by GM. The various acronyms in the EV field are confusing enough to the general public; no need to make that even worse.

“Do you understand that below a certain battery size it makes no sense to put DCFC in a plug-in vehicle? Do you understand that with a range extender, DCFC is not necessary?”

No, and definitely no. Apparently you do not understand that most people who drive a Volt actually don’t want to use gasoline, and a lot of them will stop en route for a recharge to avoid that. According to one study, Volt owners stop for an en-route recharge more often than Leaf owners:

No need to waste your electrons and protons to argue with this GM fanboy. Apparently, the Volt is god sent to him. He kept arguing about the 5th seat by saying that other compacts suck too on this premise. Apparently, he didn’t realize 2 things: (1) Logically, just because other sucks – and if that’s even true – doesn’t justify the ridiculous “situation” on the Volt’s 5th seat. (2). Legs people! Legs. Humans have legs. As I’ve told that MMF tons of times – where are you going to put your legs? You can squeeze your behind in the center seat, but you can stretch your thighs to either side if people are sitting there, which means, you can’t sit 5 people. That’s why it’s NOT a 5th seat! $34K is NOT on par with new vehicle OF THIS CLASS (COMPACT! Sure, if you consider Chevy as a MB or Lexus, or BMW level (which fanboys will say yeah). But still, the average price of compact vehicle IS NOT $34K. Cutting edge technologies? Please. How efficient is the ICE? 33%ish? 43mpg? In fact, still needs gas? It is high tech, but NOT cutting edge. No need for DCFC because of… Read more »

“Finally, his comment on i3 REx not being a true PHEV? I hope that he finally gets it on why the Volt is not an EV (under the marketing term EREV) using his same logic!”

Actually, I’m more-or-less with him on that one. Sure, if you have to pick one pigeonhole to wedge the BMW i3 REx into, that pigeonhole is labeled “PHEV”, regardless of how ill it fits into that pigeonhole.

However, more accurately, the i3 is a BEV, and BMW has offered the optional, repeat optional, add-on of a scooter motor to make it perform poorly as a PHEV. However, the i3 still performs well as a BEV, even with that crippled afterthought stuck on.

Londo, Londo, Londo.. your trolling never ends. Guess what? Trucks suck at parking in small places. I mean, if Toyota came out with a new truck and it sucked at parking in small places, that’s not acceptable. Just because other trucks suck at parking in small places doesn’t mean it’s OK for Toyota’s truck to suck at it too. If you think the Gen2 Volt @$26.5K after the tax credit is expensive, when it is cutting edge tech, has extremely low operating costs, and drives better than a BMW, I don’t know what else to tell you. You will never compare it w/a foreign luxury brand because you are an anti-Volt troll. But those of us who own one and drive it daily can attest. The function of DCFC is to charge quickly when you are out of battery range. The Volt, at 50miles of range already covers 90% of trips. So we are looking at 10% of the trips you will need the range extender. When you have a gas tank and can fill it in 5 minutes for these rare occasions, what’s the point of DCFC? I usually go over a month between fillups in the winter, and… Read more »

Oh, and 1 more thing. May I suggest you to go back to you happy little GM-Volt virtual world to SEARCH for your colleagues comment on winter weather and Volt sales, especially toward the 2016 Volt launch. You do know how to use the search feature to look that up, don’t you, given how smart and educated you are, professor?

a)as to the value of acronyms: you do understand that, aside from elon musk, these companies primary mission is to sell product; and that a key mechanism for selling product is marketing? marketing is not concerned with white papers, marketing is concerned with compact product pitches. acronyms that define product categories is a valuable means for promoting products: you identify desired customer attributes, and create an association between those customer attributes and the acronym and that puts you in a better position to sell your product to those customers.

b)stuff ain’t free, and people who actually buy the product realize that. GM is trying to *reduce* product pricing; it makes no sense for them to add content that increases price while not providing much value. the kind of people who are repulsed by the idea of using gasoline are probably not going to buy a Volt: they will either buy a BEV and spend 5 hours getting to destinations that would otherwise take 2 hours; or they will be critics on this forum who aren’t going to actually buy anything at all.

“no comment” said: “as to the value of acronyms: you do understand that, aside from elon musk, these companies primary mission is to sell product; and that a key mechanism for selling product is marketing?” I understand that marketing and advertising are willing to do literally anything they can think of which they think will help them sell their products, regardless of any other concerns (including honesty, among many other considerations). I also understand the value of language is to share information and ideas. That value is lessened if we all start using different words to say the same thing. Reasonable people understand why marketing invents terms to promote their products. But reasonable people will ignore made-up terms which add no value to communication or understanding. Reasonable people use terms for which the average person has at least some chance of understanding. “And the LORD said, Behold, the people is one, and they have all one language; and this they begin to do: and now nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined to do. “Go to, let us go down, and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another’s speech. “So the LORD scattered… Read more »

Kdawg said: “Do you understand that below a certain battery size it makes no sense to put DCFC in a plug-in vehicle? Do you understand that with a range extender, DCFC is not necessary?attery size it makes no sense to put DCFC in a plug-in vehicle? Do you understand that with a range extender, DCFC is not necessary?” Wrong, wrong, wrong and wrong (in my opinion). I have thousands of co-workers who have either an EV or a PHEV. Most of the PHEV drivers I know have gas anxiety, which is fear of running out of electrons and having to burn gas. All ev’s need fast charging which would make the gas engine mostly irrelevant and only insurance for a few long trips a year which is the point of PHEV transitional vehicles. It would also save hours and hours a year for PHEV owners who have access to DC fast charging as they would have to sit in there car and read a book while waiting for a few more electrons before hitting the road while out and about. The Outlander PHEV has DCFast charging and so does the i3 Rex. KDawg, I think you are stuck in the… Read more »

First you need to define “fast charging”, then you need to compare charge times at various levels for the battery size, then you need see what C rate the battery can even handle. Just because you put 480V with 100kW available on a Toyota PIP battery, doesn’t mean it will charge at that rate.

Regarding being condescending, when I read posts like, “how far behind GM is in its thinking….. The ELR’s pricing was stupid, arrogant and absurd.”; I respond accordingly. Especially when it’s a repeat offender.

One more thing about DCFC in a PHEV, it adds cost. This article was originally about EV’s being overpriced. Well when you start adding things that would rarely/never get used, the costs start to add up. You can make the “option” argument as I have other times, but I would expect a very low take rate of DCFC on a Gen2 Volt. 1/2 of all Volt owners trickle charge using 120V.

Putting DCFC on a Volt would really be pointless. But not putting a 6.6 kW on board charger in the Volt was a total screwup on GMs. 3.3 kW charging vs. 6.6 kW charging is the difference between public charging stations (not the free ones, because that isn’t sustainable) being cheaper than gas.

They really don’t understand how to analyze the use cases of their own masterpiece.

the Volt has an ICE that drives a generator. what that means is that you don’t have to sit around and wait for the battery to recharge at a public charging station. only the EV enthusiast who is obsessed with the idea of not using gasoline is going to be willing to wait around while waiting for the battery to recharge when he doesn’t have to do so. there just aren’t enough EV enthusiasts in the market to make a car economically viable.

the better course of action was following in the Gen2 Volt: increase the battery capacity while still maintaining the ICE generator, and better still, allowing the ICE to use regular gas.

Lensmen: “People would understand it better if you’d use the proper term for the Volt, and that’s PHEV. “EREV” is merely a marketing term invented by GM. The various acronyms in the EV field are confusing enough to the general public; no need to make that even worse.”
——–

I prefer the term EREV because it distinguishes the Volt from other plug-ins and other PHEVs. I wasn’t trying to describe it to the general public. I was replying to Jeff Songster who knows better.

“Apparently you do not understand that most people who drive a Volt actually don’t want to use gasoline, and a lot of them will stop en route for a recharge to avoid that. According to one study, Volt owners stop for an en-route recharge more often than Leaf owners:”

You do understand the difference between wanting to avoid using gasoline and understand the necessary evil to use them due to lack of infrastructures, right?

At one time (maybe still?) economists talked about the “Cadillac Effect”, i.e. you jack up the price of a product or service and that actually makes it sell better because people think they’re getting a better item plus they can be seen to have spent a lot.

The problem for GM is that the Cadillac Effect is mostly negative now; the brand has a bad image (lesser quality than other lux brands, stodgy, etc.). If anything, there’s currently a Tesla Effect.

First off, every single car that Cadillac sells carries an outrageous MSRP. Then the majority of them get sold on fairly outrageous discounts off of MSRP. It is, and has been their business model for decades.

It rivals Jewelry Store sales practices, where the high price in the case is supposed to create perceived value in the big diamond you are looking at. Then you are supposed to feel good when you negotiate it down to a lower price. You think you are getting something of high perceived value for a fraction of the cost.

If anybody pays MSRP on any Cadillac car, you are paying way too much.

Some folks don’t like that sales tactic. That’s fine. It certainly is outdated.

But the Cadillac MSRP certainly does have to be put into proper perspective when comparing it to the MSRP for a Tesla. The final sale price for the Tesla is the same as MSRP, while you should never pay full MSRP on a Cadillac. So you can’t really compare the two MSRP numbers at all.

The mistake in pricing was failing to deliver a superior vehicle! A Caddy-coated Volt with all the bells and whistles does not justify a $40k markup over a Volt! The car must also perform better than the Volt, and the ELR simply does not deliver. Certainly not at a $70k+ sticker price!

You want to make a car to compete with the Tesla Model S? As a reminder, that’s the car which won more “Best car of the year” awards than any other car in history, and also got a lot of “Best car ever made” reviews.

The better proposition for moving Voltec to the Caddy brand would have been a stretched 4 door luxury car with back seats that adults could sit in comfortably. Instead they moved to a performance look 2 door, with not enough performance improvement to warrant it.

Price being equal, I’d still rather have an i3 Rex than a Tesla. I might even take a 2016 Volt over a Tesla. Not that I have anything against Tesla at all, far from it. But that doesn’t mean they are my favorite either.

The competition with pre-owned Teslas is happening, but they are still pretty far apart. Most buyers prefer the 85kw Tesla and most of those are still in the $70s or above. I have seen a couple in the low $60s, even at $63K, a loaded i3 rex is about $56K and THEN you take as much as $10K off that number for the rebates so it becomes $46K vs $63K – a $17K delta (which will buy you a used 2012 Volt these days to go with it). Probably “worth” it for the Model S, but only if you have that kind of coin.

Cadillac didn’t make many ELRs. It was planned to be niche. Sales numbers aren’t the end all for the design merits. If that was the case, people should believe the best burger in the world is made by McDonalds.

Yeah, continue to live in your fantasy world and do Rd 2, 3, 4…whatever you like to do. I’ll ignore your post from now on, as your obviously have a problem living in a world with different views toward buying choices, and opinions. EVERYONE HAS TO VIEW THINGS THE WAY YOU SEE IT, OR THEY MUST BE WRONG. That’s the fantasy world you are living in. Do you realize that… Other people are criticizing the vehicle or the company that makes the vehicle. NOT YOU. You attack those who criticize the vehicle/company. Again, they are NOT criticizing you to begin with. Get it? No? One more time. You don’t have to go ADHD on those people who criticize something else and not you. So, people have opinion about what they feel about Cadillac being land barges, or how the Volt sucks, or how GM lied about price reduction. They are not having any opinion about you. You call those people stupid or whatever choice words you chose. Nice one, huh. Remember, this isn’t gm-volt. No one has to be nice toward GM, or Chevy, or Volt. They are still NOT criticizing you though. I clearly explained (and so have many… Read more »

“You attack those who criticize the vehicle/company. Again, they are NOT criticizing you to begin with.” Sorry buddy, you are the one that living in a different world. I don’t attack you for criticizing the issues with Volt at all. I Only attack you when you make clues statement or get personal first. Let us look back, shall we? It was you who started making it personal by calling me out on how much “clue” I had with the weather and PEVs sales when it had NOTHING to do with you or your choice. Get it? Maybe you should look yourself in the freaking mirror for once. Shall we go back look at another example? I complained about Euro Spec NV-200Van that won’t work for the US market, then you got your panties all worked out and started calling me out for “living in a fantasy world”. Maybe you should take a dosage of your own medicine that you are claimig that I need. Now, let us look at the 5th seat issue. Was my so called “defending” of the 5th seat personal? No, it wasn’t. I simply stated the distance between seat belt in the compact class and the… Read more »

Speculawyer wrote:”But I think your (and Bill Howland’s) view on the Caddies are a minority view”

Sorry, you lost that case, Mr. Speculative lawyer…

Facts on dimensions of ATS and CTS has shown it is within 1 inches of its European Competitior, (often less, NOT more). And all recent auto reviews and competition has been putting CTS/ATS at top of it class in terms of handling and braking.

So, using “land barges” is obviously a wrong classification here.

Granted, you can still arguement that some powertrains are still NOT as refined as those European offering considering that European offering have improved while those ATS/CTS is basically using a 10 year old powertrain. That is true. But saying that they are “barges” are far from the truth.

Actually, the ELR seems to compete more with the I3 than the Tesla, I getting mine for only $2000 more than an I3 Rex. But even here it is a ‘loose comparison’, as the I3 is more for traditional BMW buyers and the ELR for Caddy buyers. No argument that the basic car is old-fashioned, old school. But it is a big comfortable quiet car, with very reasonable electric range (I’m getting 48-53 with an average of 50 in pretty decent weather), and the car appears substantially built, and the thing sips gas. Yes it occassionally uses gasoline, but precious little of it. This car ultimately does not make oil company executives nor corner store vendors happy, since they’d go broke if they depended on the ELR’s gasoline usage to keep them in business. My VOlt is nice, but this ELR is basically nicer, 9″ longer and 3″ wider. THe volt is more practical, and even the volt’s overly complicated controls aren’t the nightmare the ELR’s are. You have a few knobs and buttons in the VOLT, whereas most things are ‘gesture controlled’ in the ELR, a nightmare for those of us in the cadillac demographic. But boiled down to… Read more »

5 years later Voltech is still the most advanced powertrain in the world. Fararris and Lamborghinis share the same basic powertrain found in lawnmowers. (Engine then transmission then drive shaft). Tesla just traded out the engine for 2 electric motors. BMW adds a Gasoline-powered electric generator to power the electric motor. Standard hybrids add a flywheel between the engine and transmission.

In Voltech powertrains the larger Electric Motor replaces the Flywheels and Alternators and its shaft at times is tied directly to the engine and transmission. So no energy is wasted converting mechanical energy to electric back to mechanical.

Lets say you want to take a roadtrip to a city 3 hours or 200 miles away and you keep the needle at 70 mph the whole way. In a Tesla you will be looking for a place to charge . In a BMW the batteries are long gone and you’re wondering if you should see a doctor because of your in ability to pass anything. In the ELR you come off the highway with a half tank of gas with your bateries fully charged.

Well, I stated it is ‘old-fashioned’ to keep the magpies here quiet. I feel the voltec drivetrain is noteworthy, and has every possibility of being ultimately very reliable. And the Volt and ELR both do not use much electricity, nor much gasoline when they need it.

Other cars may also have their good points, but since I mainly drive in electric mode, good electric performance and efficiency is important to me. The ELR and Volt are fair compromises.

Neither car is exactly what I like, and its charging rate at times I find a bit slow. But seeing as I value reliability over all else, I can’t seriously fault the technical design choices they made with the cars.

Now the interior design ‘Gesture Controls’ in the ELR is one of the annoyances I put up with since the overall car is great.

They have done this intentionally. Hope they won’t make this mistake again. On top of it, the media wrote that “ELR will crush Model-S” just to distract people. Please make the next ELR as 4 / 5 door vehicle since people will not buy a coupe.

I drove the ELR about a year ago and I had driven a Volt. Other than the high quality of refinement the ELR had it was a Volt in disguise. At $66k, it’s still to high and may go in the way that the Crossfire did over 10 years ago. I went for an i3 as this was in my budget and haven regret it. Good luck GM!